The Leopard(98)

‘I’m a bit pissed, too,’ Krongli smiled, putting an arm around Harry’s shoulders. ‘And, to be frank, I have no idea where to get a taxi. Can you stand upright?’

Harry got one and then two legs beneath him, blinked a couple of times and established that at least he was vertical again. Semi-embracing an officer from Ustaoset.

‘Where are you sleeping tonight?’ Krongli asked.

Harry looked askance at the officer. ‘At home. And preferably on my own, if that’s alright with you.’

At that moment a police car pulled up in front of them, and the window slid down. Harry heard the tail end of some laughter and then a composed voice.

‘Harry Hole, Crime Squad?’

‘Sme,’ Harry sighed.

‘We’ve just received a phone call from one of the Kripos detectives requesting that we drive you home safe and sound.’

‘Open the door then!’

Harry got onto the back seat, lolled against the headrest, closed his eyes, started to feel everything rotating, but preferred that to watching the two in the front ogling him. Krongli asked them to ring him at a number when ‘Harry’ was safely home. What the hell gave him the idea he was his pal? Harry heard the hum of the window and then the pleasant voice from the front seat again.

‘Where do you live, Hole?’

‘Keep going straight ahead,’ Harry said. ‘We’re going to pay someone a visit.’

When Harry felt the car set off, he opened his eyes, turned and saw Aslak Krongli still standing on the pavement in Møllergata.





43


House Call


KAJA LAY ON HER SIDE STARING INTO THE DARKNESS OF her bedroom. She had heard the gate open and now there were footsteps on the gravel outside. She held her breath and waited. Then the doorbell rang. She slipped out of bed, into her dressing gown and over to the window. Another ring. She opened the curtains a fraction. And sighed.

‘Drunken police officer,’ she said out loud in the room.

She put her feet into slippers and shuffled into the hall towards the door. Opened it and stood in the doorway with crossed arms.

‘Hello there, schweedie,’ the policeman slurred. Kaja wondered if he was trying to perform the drunkard sketch. Or if it was the pitiful original version.

‘What brings you here so late?’ Kaja asked.

‘You. Can I come in?’

‘No.’

‘But you said I could get in touch if I was too lonely. And I was.’

‘Aslak Krongli,’ she said. ‘I’m in bed. Go to your hotel now. We can have a coffee tomorrow morning.’

‘I need a coffee now, I reckon. Ten minutes and we’ll ring for a taxi, eh? We can talk about murders and serial killers to pass the time. What do you say?’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m not on my own.’

Krongli straightened up at once, with a movement that made Kaja suspect he was not as drunk as he had seemed at first. ‘Really? Is he here, that policeman you said you were so hung up on?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Are they his?’ the officer drawled, kicking the enormous shoes beside the doormat.

Kaja didn’t answer. There was something in Krongli’s voice, no, behind it, something she hadn’t heard there before. Like a low-frequency, barely audible growl.

‘Or have you just put the shoes there to frighten off unwanted visitors?’ Laughter in his eyes. ‘There’s no one here, is there, Kaja?’

‘Listen, Aslak—’

‘The policeman you’re talking about, Harry Hole, came a cropper earlier this evening. Turned up at Justisen as drunk as a skunk, picked a fight and got one. A patrol car passed by to give him a lift home. So you must be free tonight after all, eh?’

Her heart beat faster; she was no longer cold under the dressing gown.

‘Perhaps they drove him here instead,’ she said and could hear her voice was different now.

‘No, they rang me and said they had driven him way up the hill to visit someone. When they found out he wanted to go to Rikshospital and they strongly advised against it, he just jumped out at the traffic lights. I like my coffee strong, OK?’

An intense gleam had come into his eyes, the same Even used to get when he wasn’t well.

‘Aslak, go now. There are taxis in Kirkeveien.’

His hand shot out and before she could react he had grabbed her arm and pushed her inside. She tried to free herself, but he put an arm around her and held her tight.

‘Do you want to be just like her?’ his voice hissed in her ear. ‘To cut and run, to scram? To be like all you bloody lot . . .’

She groaned and twisted, but he was strong.

‘Kaja!’

The voice came from the bedroom where the door stood open. A firm, imperious man’s voice that, under different circumstances, Krongli might have recognised. As he had heard it only an hour earlier at Justisen.